Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Teaching Students About the Importance of Signal Words

I am so thrilled with using Content Literacy: Lessons and Texts for Comprehension Across the Curriculum by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis! Our next study skills lesson in 8th grade is focusing on signal words and phrases. I downloaded Ladybug's Teacher Files Transitional Words and Posters as a starting point. I HIGHLY recommend this purchase! These posters made an anchor chart of signal words and phrases.
After looking more closely at what I wanted to teach, I added my own anchor chart to make sure temporal/time as well as basic conjunctions that signal change or importance when reading.

One of my teacher friends introduced me to the Google extension, Kami, so I incorporated this into my lesson as well. Kids will hilight the signal word, underline the sentence and use the comment box to tell what the signal word means. I have an example below. This tool is so easy to use. I sent my teenagers a text to add this onto their computers at home!

Finally, gradual release of responsibility is planned. The first page of the article is going to be demonstrated. Kids will work in partners to annotate the second page of this article. Finally, students will be placed in small groups to choose an article from NEWSELA to annotate and share with the class. I think this lesson will last 3-4 days as this is being taught during our 30 minute WIN (What I Need) block of time this year.